1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a shroud supporting structure for a gas turbine engine, in which: an annular shroud surrounding tip ends of a plurality of turbine blades which are attached to a turbine disk in a radial arrangement is fitted on an inner peripheral surface of an open end of a turbine case; and a retaining ring fitted on an outer peripheral surface of the open end of the turbine case has a retaining part provided thereon to prevent the shroud from being dropped off in an axial direction.
2. Description of the Related Art
Such a shroud supporting structure for a gas turbine engine is known from Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-303907. This invention has a configuration in which the shroud is divided into eight parts in the circumferential direction and is fitted on the inner peripheral surface of the turbine case, and in this state, the retaining ring fitted on the outer periphery of the turbine case is connected to the turbine case with eight rivets; and thereby the retaining part of the retaining ring is placed in engagement with the front end of the shroud, so that the shroud is prevented from dropping off from the turbine case.
Meanwhile, the above conventional configuration has the following problem: since the retaining ring is connected to the turbine case with the rivets, when the retaining ring is to be attached/detached at the time of assembling or doing maintenance on the gas turbine engine, the work to hammer or cut the rivets is necessary, thereby requiring a lot of time and labor for this work.